Negative Cat by Sophie Blackall - OPTIONAL

Negative Cat by Sophie Blackall. PICTURE BOOK. Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin Random House), 2021. $18. 9780399257193

BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3) - OPTIONAL 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

Told from the perspective of a young boy who desperately wants a cat, this book follows him through the convincing of his parents and the purchasing of a cat from a shelter. Only the story doesn’t end there, the cat turns out to be a grump and is almost kicked out until the young boy discovers the cat loves to read with him.

I was disappointed to find that I didn’t feel any real connection to the characters or the cat. I thought, based on the title, that this book would have some message about emotions, but that wasn’t the case at all. The very end of the book did reveal that a whole class of kids started going to the shelter to read to cats and thus practice their reading, making this book applicable if your school has an animal that visits to read with the students.   

Jen Wecker, HS English Teacher